mysterious mind

I thought our previous run had gotten us all sorted out. Reese must now know that U-turning on the road wasn't necessary, and that the hill was to be run up ... not down. I bundled up and hooked up the same five dogs as the day before: Reese and Xtra in lead, Pepper in swing, Parka and Devilfish in wheel.

We headed out, making good time on the road to the trail. When we went over the culvert where the creek runs under the road, Reese suddenly let his line go slack. He was hopping, not running, although with his long, gangly legs he was still well in front of Pepper. Xtra was giving him sideways looks as he fell behind her and tugged her head around with their neckline. He wasn't limping, but skipping along slowly, as if hesitating to take each stride forward. He looked back at me every few seconds, as if asking for something. I kept glancing behind us, thinking a car or a snowmachine's approach had been muffled by the layers and layers of insulation around my ears. The road was empty. I scanned the bushes for moose, or a fox. Nothing but snow, not even a raven overhead. I called my "starting up" command, and yipped a little to encourage more momentum. Everyone sped up. Reese kept hopping and looking back. So I kept looking back, straining to crane my neck around past all my layers and hoods and figure out what I was missing. On the fifth check, when I looked forward again, Reese had the whole team halfway through a picture-perfect haw-around and they were headed full speed towards me. All I could do was brace for the sled's spin on the hard-pack of the road and dig down with the bar-brake.

The team stopped and instantly started screaming to go again - we were only a mile from the house and nobody was in the mood for a break. We went through a shortened version of our road-doughnuts twice before Reese took off in the correct direction again, without looking back. Now we were rolling. I was heartened that it hadn't taken quite as long, but concerned that Reese had, once again, started making decisions and carrying them out on his own. And all this had taken place a quarter mile before yesterday's doughnuts. That part of the road hadn't even been in SIGHT yet.

The next challenge blocking our path to perfect trails was the giant hill. My faith that all our problems with forward motion had been worked out during my desperate hill-sprints the day before was wavering a bit after day two of road doughnuts. I was beginning to think Reese was internalizing these bad runs as perfect runs, and trying to repeat them. We came around a corner and the hill loomed before us. Reese sprinted up the switchback, hit the main trail and had the whole team pointed downhill again before I could hit the brake. The subsequent tangle involving several spruce saplings and some willow took awhile to sort out. Devilfish and Parka, who I am running without necklines to reduce tangles in just such a circumstance, managed to get their tugs knotted around the frozen vegetation anyway. Pepper took the opportunity to blissfully roll in the snow, creating an explosion of powder in the midst of it all.

Eventually we made it over the hill, my stomach in knots. At the T-turn, Reese took the gee perfectly, swinging us up behind the farm and onto the little rolling hills.

I was hoping that a right turn at the lighting-tree would bring us back around to the creek in a nice loop. I still don't know the trail systems here, which has been a bit of an issue for me. I know there are some great long loops in this system, but I have no idea where they are exactly, or which side-trail or turn will get me there. I have a vague, not-to-scale hand-sketched map of the trails from a neighbor but have found it only passingly useful inasmuch as I KNOW there are loops. But I still can't find them. We took the right and ended up at a dead-end of a tree-harvesting area with no way out. We turned (suddenly the perfect U-turn was useful, but this time, Reese insisted on plowing ahead!!) and headed home.

The creek crossing wasn't as bad as the first attempt - I realized I just need to ride out the drop, and with the team moving reliably forward across the good ice the sled will stay upright if I just trust momentum and gravity.

But at this end of this run, I was still disheartened. I was hoping to be covering more miles, and to be more familiar with the trails at this point, but instead we are stuck in a holding pattern - boxed in on one side by my unfamiliarity with the trails, another by the rougher-than-expected access to them, and on another by my lack of a reliable leader - or my inability to effectively troubleshoot with the one I have.

Four days later, we were out again. This time there was only hesitation, but no road-doughnut to contend with. The hill was an exact repeat of the spruce-and-tangles downhill sprint and nearly-barfing musher at the top, but we made it. Reese missed the T-turn this go-round, but managed to make the second-chance turn. Before we had gone fifty yards, however, he was attempting another around-haw on the narrow trail. I had no idea what had spurred this. I caught him and hauled him back up the trail, but Xtra, running up front with him, wasn't looking so hot. She was backed off her tug and just looked worried. I decided to give her a break from the pressure and chaos of running up front and stopped the sled, switching out happy, stress-free Pepper from swing. Back in team, Xtra relaxed and pulled hard with her crazy little rocking-horse gait for the remainder of the run.

At the lightning tree, I asked Reese for a left turn instead of right, wanting to head up the logging road away from the slash and dead-end of the day before. He figured it out quickly and swung the team in the correct direction. Success!!  But no sooner had I started grinning at this progress, no sooner had the sled had made the corner and everyone was lined up and headed up the trail, he took it upon himself to turn us around and was plummeting down the hill and back around the corner the way we'd come. On the broad logging road he swung wide and I couldn't catch him as he went by. I probably should have hit the brake and forced him back around, but I didn't. In retrospect, it would have been a great training opportunity. At that moment, I was done.

So we returned home down beautiful trails, and with a blissfully unexciting creek crossing. I snacked the dogs and returned to the couch to try and figure out what to try next, because what I was doing was clearly not moving us forward.